The personal blog of Peter Lee a.k.a. "China Hand"... Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel, and an open book to those who read. You are welcome to contact China Matters at the address chinamatters --a-- prlee.org or follow me on twitter @chinahand.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Just in Case You Needed Help Spitting Out Your Morning Coffee…

…here’s
today’s headline from the Los Angeles Times print edition

CIA sizes up Syria radicals for drone
hits

For the webversion, the LAT went with the more conventional and presumably more accurate
presentation:

CIA begins
sizing up Islamic extremists in Syria for drone strikes

Syrian
radicals of the non-Islamist extremist persuasion can, I suppose, breathe a
sigh of relief that they do not occupy the “kill on sight” overlap region of the
Arab/radical/Islamist extremist Venn diagram, at least as far as the US
government is concerned.

As to the
motivation for assembling “target packages” on drone-worthy individuals:

Identifying possible threats in Syria
would be "a logical step if the policy community sends a signal that,
'Hey, you guys might want to think about how you would respond to a possible
request for plans about how you would thin the herd of the future
insurgency,'" said a former CIA officer with experience in the Middle
East.

I assume the
target audience for this article is not “Syrian radicals” or “Islamic
extremists in Syria”, neither of whom probably has the inclination to enjoy the
LA Times’ superior blend of world-class reporting, in-depth entertainment news,
and punchy headlines.

It is
probably the Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, which are receiving a warning
that the fall of Assad to predominantly Islamist forces will not mean the end
of Syria’s civil war, or US attempts to channel Syrian politics into more
US-friendly channels.

In other
words, that designation of the al Nusra Front as a terrorist organization—which
appears rather nonsensical as the Front advances the US cause of removing
Bashar al Assad through its bloody business-- is good for something.It provides a continuing justification for US
intervention a.k.a. "thinning the herd" even after the insurrection ends.

Considering
that the United States has been unable to effect the removal of Assad, a secular authoritarian eager to do business with America, I wonder if
US disapproval, as expressed by the occasional drone strike, will be enough to
deter the Saudis and their Salafist assets in pursuit of their project of Sunni
resurgence in Syria and Iraq.